Untold lives blog

Cityread London, which launched this week, will run throughout April with events in every London borough; aimed to promote reading for pleasure and also to encourage Londoners to contemplate their city’s history.  Each year Cityread London selects a book for the whole capital to read together and for 2014 this is My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young, selected to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One.  Louisa will be speaking about this at a Cityread London event at the British Library on 14 April.

Also as part of the Cityread London event programme, several public libraries are hosting a production by the District 6 Theatre Group, on the role and experience of soldiers of colour in World War One; exploring the contribution made by people of all colours, ethnicities, religious beliefs and nationalities to the British war effort in World War One, whether by serving in the armed forces or providing material and financial resources.  You can see this performance on these dates at the following libraries:

15 April - Richmond Lending Library

22 April - Barking Learning Centre 

24 April – Dagenham Library

28 April – Battersea Library

30 April - Wembley Library

Photo 24/(122) An Indian Cavalry horse hospital in a French factory, 1915. 
 

It is encouraging to hear that Cityread London 2014 events are including these narratives; as non-white non-European experiences of World War One have traditionally been given less media coverage than other aspects of the war.  For researchers interested in this topic, there is a wealth of material in the British Library’s India Office Records with information about the stories of South Asian soldiers serving in the British Indian Army  during World War One; we blogged about some of these stories previously in posts Indian soldiers’ views of England during World War I, An Indian soldier in France during World War I, and The Indian Sepoy in the trenches.  Furthermore last month we wrote about the experiences of Indian Muslims travelling from India to Mecca as part of the Hajj during World War One  in the post Pilgrim traffic during the First World War.

Stella Wisdom
Digital Curator

Further reading 

World War One sources on the British Library website

Every year Indian Muslims undertake the journey from India to Mecca as part of the Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam.  Prior to 1947, the British Indian Government maintained a strong interest in the welfare and safety of pilgrims travelling from India, and regularly received reports from the British Agent at Jeddah on the yearly pilgrimage, copies of which can be found in the India Office Records.

 
The Kabba at Mecca c.1880s (X463 - plate 1) 

The outbreak of hostilities between the British and Ottoman Empires in 1914 raised fears about the impact this would have on the Hajj.  In November 1914, the British Government published an undertaking in the Gazette Extraordinary that the holy places of Arabia and Jeddah would be immune from attack or molestation by the British naval and military forces so long as there was no interference with pilgrims from India.  Similar assurances were given by the Governments of France and Russia.  Despite this, there remained fears for the safety of the pilgrims who would be entering a zone of conflict.  There was also a concern among British officials that foodstuffs and other supplies exported from India for the use of pilgrims in Jeddah would be appropriated by Turkish forces.  The Indian Government had briefly stopped exports of food from India to Jeddah following the seizure of a cargo of food supplies by the Turkish authorities in March 1915.  However reports of distress amongst pilgrims and residents of the holy places had caused the exports to be resumed. 

In the summer of 1915, the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India exchanged telegrams on the subject of whether to prohibit pilgrimage from India.  The Secretary of State favoured prohibition of pilgrimage for that year, explaining “It is not desirable that large numbers of such [British subjects] should visit enemy country during war.  We can neither protect them nor ensure food supplies. Turks might detain influential men as hostages and would tamper with loyalty of all more effectively than last year”.  However, the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, felt there should no prohibition as it would offend Muslim opinion in India, give an impression of British weakness, and be inconsistent with the British Government’s published undertaking.  It was finally decided to allow pilgrimage from India, but to discourage Indian Muslims from embarking on it.  Assurances were also sought from the Ottoman Government, via the American Government, that food supplies exported from India for the pilgrims would not be diverted to other purposes.

Despite the considerable difficulties, pilgrims continued to travel from India on pilgrimage to Mecca every year throughout the War, although in smaller numbers.  By 1917, the situation had improved enough for Lieutenant Colonel Wilson at the British Agency at Jeddah to write “It may I think be said that, for a War Time Pilgrimage, that of 1917 may be reckoned a great success from every point of view”.

John O’Brien
Post 1858 India Office Records

Further Reading:

Revenue & Statistics Department File 3355/1914, Pilgrim Traffic and the War [IOR/L/E/7/792]

Europeana 1914-1918, a free online resource which brings together original wartime documents, films and stories from 20 countries across Europe.

Tall, handsome and charming, Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was a well-known face of the British establishment.  As a war hero and ornithologist, he was befriended and trusted by many prominent figures such as Winston Churchill and T. E. Lawrence.  His role in historical events was even featured in films, including A Dangerous man: Lawrence after Arabia and The young Indiana Jones Chronicles.  

BL: Photo1083/10(0)  Portrait of Meinertzhagen by Bailey, in Indian photographs of F.M. Bailey 1900-03 

But after his death this glowing image of Meinertzhagen as a British ‘hero’ was shattered when a number of frauds were discovered.  Amongst the bird collections that he donated to the Zoological Museum in Tring were many specimens stolen from the Natural History Museum. Prompted by this ornithological forgery, historians began to question the authenticity of his political persona. Brian Garfield’s book exposed Meinertzhagen as a ‘Colossal Fraud’, a liar, a charlatan, and possibly a murderer. 

 
BL: Photo 1083/10(0)  Portrait of Meinertzhagen by Bailey, in Indian photographs of F.M. Bailey 1900-03

How many of Meinertzhagen’s picaresque adventures were real and how many were pure inventions?  His private letters to his ex-colleague Colonel F M Bailey (1882-1967) in the India Office Private Papers offer us a glimpse of another side of his personality.

 Meinertzahagen was supposedly a non-Jewish Zionist and a staunch advocate of the Jewish state of Israel.  He showed unusual sympathy for the plight of the Jews since the Palestinian Mandate in 1919 to the outbreak of the Second World War.  According to his Middle East Diary, Meinertzhagen claims he conducted three interviews with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.  In a letter to Colonel Bailey dated 30 July 1933, he writes ‘I am now just off to see Hitler and Goering first as an ambassador from the British Jews to try and get Hitler to hold his hand’.  However, Garfield declares that these alleged interviews cannot be corroborated by any of the official records either in Britain or in Germany.

Was Meinertzhagen a true cynic who did not have any serious conviction one way or the other?  A letter to Bailey written on 24 September 1937 contains the remark: ‘…Fascism, Hitlerism, Bolshevism, Zionism and all the other –isms flourish.  Some day they will become –wasms and then the world will sleep again’. At other times Meinertzhagen expressed extreme right-wing political views.  In one of his letters of 1931, he claims he was ‘no believer in democracy, with the uneducated scum on top!’ 

In a letter dated 19 July 1953, Meinertzhagen gave the reasons why he refused a knighthood: ‘If I had accepted, I should have found it difficult to explain without divulging the work on which I had been engaged’.  So what particular “work” was he afraid to divulge? Could this be interpreted as a semi-confession that some of his ‘work’ in the past did not merit an honour from Her Majesty?

There is one particularly interesting piece of advice which Meinertzhagen gave to his friend in a letter of 27 January 1940 – Bailey should commission a ghost writer to spice up his memoirs to whet the appetite of the general public. Was his own Middle East Diary spiced up by a ghost writer?

Xiao Wei Bond
Curator, India Office Private Papers

Further reading:

IOPP/Mss Eur F157/246  Bailey Collection: Letters from Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen to Col F.M.Bailey, 1928-1960

Richard Meinertzhagen,  Middle East Diary, 1917-1956 (1959)

Brian Garfield, The Meinertzhagen Mystery (2007)

T.E. Lawrence,  Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926)

It wasn’t always easy being Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, especially when there was a war on.  This was particularly true of Lieutenant-Colonel C G Prior, Britain’s senior administrator, based at Bushire in Persia, who was knighted in 1943 as Sir Geoffrey Prior and wrote a review of the year of his knighthood in his Administration Report of the Persian Gulf for the Year 1943.

 IOR/R/15/1/719 f. 262 

Despite the fact that the Gulf was an exceptionally quiet posting in those war-torn years (the 1941 Report says that the Gulf enjoyed ‘almost perfect peace’ throughout that year), Prior found plenty to complain about.  His review covers everything from his annoyance that the Government of India had stopped the export of cereals, which forced the local populace to give up their habitual diet of rice overnight, vastly increasing the workload of Gulf officers, to the failings of the British military authorities, who were given control over wide areas about which they knew ‘nothing whatever’ and failed to share important intelligence information with civilian colleagues, such as the report of the capture of a German agent called Mayer.

However, Prior reserved his greatest indignation for Britain’s American allies.  ‘It would’, he begins quietly, ‘be agreeable to record that our Allies were cooperative and considerate, but this was not the case.  Almost without exception the American detachment and visiting American officers whether of the Army or the civil organisations showed little desire to consult with their British colleagues or to cooperate with them’.  An instance of this, says Prior, was the decision of the Americans to electrify the perimeter of their camp at Bushire, without giving any intimation of their intentions to the British Army or civilian authorities.  This, says Prior unfeelingly, ‘recoiled upon their own heads as the first victim was an American soldier'.  He goes on, ‘Their behaviour varied from the unsatisfactory to the deplorable’.  Not even the cutlery was safe: ‘At the fête given in aid of the Persian Gulf Fighter Fund at Sabzabad, a number of articles including spoons and forks were stolen from the house, apparently by officers who penetrated the building’.  The crime was perhaps stimulated by the effects of liquor on an unprecedented scale, as ‘The drunkenness shown by the men on this occasion was without parallel in Bushire’.

There were other, even more shocking displays of bad behaviour for British officials elsewhere in Persia, and ‘the incident of the four American soldiers who penetrated the Governor’s house at Khorramshar one night and requested him to supply them with women will long be remembered’.

Prior at least provides some balance by also expressing his disapproval of ‘our Russian allies’. These, ‘though far better behaved’ than the Americans, ‘showed no desire to cooperate’ and perhaps worst of all for the clubbable British, remained ‘inscrutable and aloof’.  Prior concludes unkindly by saying that ‘The Residency as a whole heaved a sigh of relief when both these bodies took their departure’.

Martin Woodward
Archival Specialist, Gulf History Project 

Qatar Digital Library

Further reading: 

British Library, ‘Administration Reports of the Persian Gulf’. IOR/R/15/1/719, ff. 262ff

On 27 January 1859 in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin, Prince Friedrich Victor Wilhelm Albert Hohenzollern – Queen Victoria’s first grandchild– was born with his left arm around his neck.  It took three days for anyone to notice the arm had been damaged, but it was a problem which the future Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia would spend the rest of his life trying to conceal.

Prince Wilhelm was left with Erb’s Palsy after a protracted breech birth during which the two attending doctors were hamstrung by royal etiquette forcing them to work beneath the mother’s skirts, and the message summoning Berlin’s foremost obstetrician got lost.  Permanent withering of the arm was probably caused by damage done to the nerves in his arm and neck by the forceps which dragged him out.  Born blue, he was initially presumed dead and only brought round by vigorous rubbing which probably only made the nerve damage worse.  It has often been speculated that oxygen deprivation at birth also left him with minor brain damage, a theory which certainly would explain the unstable personality for which he would become infamous.

In early infancy, it became clear that the young Prince’s left arm was not growing properly.  His left hand was a claw and the arm a shrunken dead weight. Physical prowess was prized amongst the Prussian royals, so from the age of six months the Prince began to undergo arcane but undeniably imaginative treatments intended to fix his damaged arm.  Some treatments were inoffensively useless – the arm was sprayed with seawater, massaged and wrapped in cold compresses – but others were more macabre.  The practice of weekly “animal baths”, which essentially required the arm to be shoved inside the carcass of a freshly killed animal so that the heat might galvanise the shrivelled tissue, was thought by Queen Victoria to be revolting and idiotic.  The method of binding the young Prince’s good arm to his body so that his left arm would “have to work” did little except compromise his balance, whilst drastic electric shock therapy was administered when he was barely a year old.  At the age of four, he was placed in a body-stretching machine akin to a medieval rack to correct the various muscular problems that had developed in his neck and shoulders.

'The Kaiser and Prince Henry of Prussia arrive to-day'. Report for Thursday 19 May 1910. Image taken from Daily Sketch. Images Online 

 
As an adult, the Kaiser was semi-successful in hiding the withered arm.  In formal pictures, he typically posed with his left hand resting on his sword with the right on top, and with gloves to provide distraction. His clothes were tailored with higher pockets to disguise the length of his left arm and he grew adept at shooting and riding with his right arm.  Historical videos show passable movement in his left arm and a 1915 edition of the Toronto World even claimed that  “a series of string and cords, acting like muscles…connected with the good muscles of the shoulder most adroitly, enable him to impart to it movements that are almost life-like”.  The Kaiser’s physical deficiency has often been identified as the key to his lust for military and imperial power and it is interesting to speculate on the course European history might have taken had he not had such a traumatic entry into the world.

Julia Armfield
Former Intern, Printed Historical Sources

Further Reading

Miranda Carter, The Three Emperors (London, 2009)

World War One on the British Library website

On 14 February 1797, the British and Spanish naval fleets met off the south-west coast of Portugal at the Battle of Cape St Vincent.  The Spanish were allied with France against Britain in the Revolutionary Wars.  Although the Spanish fleet was much larger, the British Navy under the command of Admiral Sir John Jervis was victorious.  Horatio Nelson in the Captain led the boarding parties which took the San Nicolas and the San Josef. 

Battle of Cape St. Vincent - Nelson boarding the San Josef and receiving the Spanish Admiral's sword. ©Lessing Archive/British Library Board Images Online 

The Captain of the Fleet Robert Calder was chosen to carry home the welcome news of victory. Calder was knighted for his services on 3 March 1797.  A rousing song was soon written by J Ogden junior to celebrate the victory.  One of the ways in which the words of the song were disseminated was through publication in regional newspapers, such as the Leeds Intelligencer of 20 March 1797 and the Chester Courant of 18 April 1797.  The words were to be sung to the tune of Valentine’s Day.

The British Tars’ Valentine

Or, the glorious 14th of February

When Morpheus veil’d the briny deep,

And landsmen all were gone to sleep,

Brave Jervis, with his gallant few,

Kept watch, in hopes the Dons to view.

For though their ships were three times nine,

Our Tars would have a Valentine.

    And pledg’d themselves ere they did dine,

    To send us home a Valentine.

When grey-ey’d morning dawn’d her light,

The Spanish squadron hove in sight;

Brave Jervis form’d two lines compact,

That with more vigour they might act:

For though their ships were three times nine,

Our Tars would have a Valentine.

    As they had pledg’d ere they did dine,

    To send us home a Valentine.

Our Tars quite bent upon their prey,

Impatient lest they’d skulk away:

Then Jervis bravely led them on;

‘Twas near the time of mid-day sun:

And though their ships were three times nine,

Undauntedly he broke their Line.

    For he stood pledg’d ere they did dine,

    His Tars should have a Valentine.

The Spanish fleet could not unite-

Such was the fury of the fight;

For every effort which they try’d

Serv’d only more to curb their pride;

And though their ships were three times nine,

Our Tars fought for a Valentine.

    For they stood pledg’d ere they did dine,

    Britain should have a Valentine.

Just at the time of setting sun,

The Spaniards on all sides did run;

Leaving behind their Salvadore,

St. Joseph, aye, and two Saints more;

Our Tars then wash’d their throats with wine,

While Jervis form’d the Valentine.

    Then all in triumph went to dine,

    And Calder bore the Valentine.

Margaret Makepeace
Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading

British Newspaper Archive

A garland, containing seven choice songs, viz. 1. Young roger the Ploughman. 2. Good humour and wit. 3. The British tars Valentine. 4. Feather Paul. 5. The dumb wife cur'd. 6. A favorite song. 7. The Cobler. Preston : printed by E. Sergent, in the Market-Place; where may be had, the greatest Assortment of Songs and Histories, Wholesale & Retail, [1800?].

An unassuming financial file contained in the records of the British Political Agency in Bahrain (that now form a part of the India Office Records held at the British Library) unexpectedly contains two rare examples of Arabic-language propaganda posters produced by the British Government during World War II. Remarkably, the only reason that the two posters have been preserved in the records is because financial accounts of the Bahraini government are typed on their reverse. It appears that the posters were used by the Agency in place of paper due to a shortage in supplies caused by World War II.

 
IOR/R/15/1/355 f. 42

The accounts on the posters’ reverse are for the hijri calendar years 1362 and 1363 (c. 1943) but the posters themselves are not dated. However, given that one of them depicts a children’s mock parliament discussing the post-blitz re-planning of London, it appears that they were produced sometime after May 1941 (when the blitz ended) and thus are roughly contemporaneous with the financial accounts printed on their reverse.

Front Cover of ‘File 19/176 VI Bahrain Finances’ (IOR/R/15/1/355)

Both of the posters seek to promote a strong, progressive image of Britain and stress the involvement of school children (of both sexes) in British society and in shaping the future of the country. By depicting children involved in a mock parliament, one of the posters alludes not only to Britain’s actual parliament – in contrast with Germany’s dictatorial system – but also to the supposedly inclusive nature of a modern Britain that involved young people in broader issues related to society.

The other poster presents a more overtly militaristic image of British youth and has the tag line يتمرن طلبة المدارس بريطانيا اليوم ليكونوا صناع و جنود الغد [Students of British Schools Practice Today to be the Builders and Soldiers of Tomorrow]. The poster has a large image of a boy in British Army uniform firing a Bren Machine Gun. Its text discusses military service for youth in the country.

IOR/R/15/1/355 f. 41  Training the People: British Boys and Girls discussing the re-planning of London

 تدريب الشعب اولاد و بنات بريطانيا يتباحثون في اعادة تخطيط لندن

On both of the posters, the slogan 'For the Sake of Freedom' appears below a picture of the Union Jack flag. The use of this slogan is ironic to say the least given that at this time Britain still ruled over a vast global empire that robbed millions of people around the world of the very freedom that they were ostensibly fighting for. Indeed, many of the individuals at whom these Arabic-language posters were targeted were living in areas that were under the imperial domination of the British.

This was especially true in the case of Bahrain. Although the country was never formally a part of the British Empire, a series of treaties agreed between the British Government and the Al Khalifa family in the nineteenth century had given Britain control over Bahrain’s foreign relations, incorporating the country into the British Imperial system.

'For the Sake of Freedom' (detail from IOR/R/15/1/355 f. 42)

During World War II, the Middle East was the site of a propaganda struggle between Great Britain and its allies, and Nazi Germany and the other axis powers. As my earlier blog post demonstrated, propaganda produced by the German Government – in this case radio broadcasts in Arabic – found a receptive ear in some areas of the Persian Gulf. The British made efforts to counter this German propaganda by radio broadcasts of their own and through the production of printed materials such as these posters.

Louis Allday
British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Qatar Digital Library

Twitter @Louis_Allday

Seasonal Greetings!  Today we’re bringing you Christmas Day 1899 from the besieged town of Ladysmith in Natal.

The Second Anglo Boer War began on 11 October 1899.  After the battles of Dundee and Elandslaagte, General George Stuart White ordered the British troops to retreat to Ladysmith.  Having bombarded the town with shells from 30 October, the Boers besieged Ladysmith from 2 November, cutting off railway and telegraph communication.  Over 21,000 civilian and military personnel were trapped.  The threat of starvation and disease loomed large as the siege dragged on for 118 days.  Polluted water was an acute problem.

In his diary of the siege, Henry Nevinson of the Daily Chronicle noted that there was no ceasefire on Christmas Day 1899: ‘The Boer guns gave us an early Christmas carol, and at intervals all day they joined in the religious and social festivities’.  There were about 250 European children left in the town so four enormous trees were set up and decorated.  Father Christmas decked out in swansdown braved the heat. In the evening each child was given a present. A dance for the adults was then held.

'Band' of Natal Mounted Rifles in red and gold paper tabards, with tin whistles and drums made from empty casks covered with raw hides. From H St J Tugman, The siege of Ladysmith in 120 pictures.

Nevinson reported that the soldiers’ Christmas dinner was enough to mark the day.  Compared with ordinary short rations, a helping of pudding, a pinch of tobacco, and a drop of rum were rare treats. Food could still be purchased in Ladysmith but prices were sky-high: 28 potatoes sold in the market on Christmas Eve for 30s; a goose cost £3; a turkey £5.  

This Christmas Day menu comes from the papers of General Sir George Stuart White.  He seems to have dined somewhat better than his men.

IOPP/MSS Eur F108/76

The menu is written in French and full of jokey references to the British predicament.  The meal opened with game soup ‘au pipsqueak’, a type of shell.  After this came mutton chops followed by goose with Guides sauce and roast mutton with boiled ‘Pom Pom’. ‘Pom Pom’ was the name given to the 1lb shell being dropped on the town; others were known as ‘Weary Willie’, ‘Nasty Knox’, and ’Long Tom’. The next course was cold asparagus with Hollandaise sauce - surely a nod to the Dutch origins of the Boers?  This was accompanied by ham ‘aux bombes’. The next two courses were hellfire plum pudding and Kruger cheese. And lastly ‘desert’ rather than ‘dessert’ to end a memorable Christmas meal.


Margaret Makepeace
Curator, East India Company Records


Further reading:
Papers of General Field Marshal Sir George Stuart White (1835-1912) IOPP/MSS Eur F108– Siege of Ladysmith IOPP/MSS Eur F108/76.
H W Nevinson, Ladysmith - The diary of a siege (1900)
H St J Tugman, The siege of Ladysmith in 120 pictures (1900)